When all else fails hug the dog

Transcriber: Zou Jiabin
Reviewer: Hani Eldalees

Hello, I’m Mina Caveschwore.

I’m a clinical psychologist
and an animal therapist,

And today, I’m going to talk about
the healing benefits of pets.

When all else fails,
hug the dog

or your cat.

How many of you have heard this statement
and wondered if it was true?

Really? Would just a hug from a dog
just cure everything?

Or,

would it be…

is there more to it?

How many of you
have been waiting to try out

and get an opportunity to be with a pet

to make you feel better?

If we were to have a head count right now,

most of you would have already
experienced that

the hug of your dog
had made you feel better,

and the rest of you would be waiting
to experience it.

But, what is it about the hug of dog
or the touch of a pet

that makes you forget all your worries?

If you’re a pet owner,
you already know the answer.

I have been talking about
the healing benefits of pets

for over 15 years now,

promoting the benefits of
human-animal interaction

and the mutual health benefits that
are there for both humans

and pets

when they live together.

But the last year, 2020,

has taught us so much about
what I have been…

what I have been promoting for
over 15 years now,

that pets bring not just joy in our life,

but they also help us stabilize
our emotions

and help us get through
some of our most stressful times.

2020 hit us like a wrecking ball
in our faces.

We were all taken aback unexpectedly
due to the pandemic,

due to the lockdown,

we were forced to stay at home.

We were forced to work from home.

Work from home was now the new normal.

And we we had to maintain
social distancing,

hence we couldn’t see our family,

hence we couldn’t see our friends,

a lot of human contact was just stopped.

The world had come to a standstill
and so had our social life.

We were…

It was when we were
trying to deal with this

when we were adapting to
this new sudden change.

It wasn’t the fancy cars or
the fancy clothes or the gym membership

or the club membership
that helped us get through.

It was the underdogs, literally.

Our dogs and cats helped us
get through this pandemic.

Those who have pets, and
those who have the …… those who have pets

and those who have lived
with pets through the pandemic

will definitely understand
what I’m saying.

The early morning rush hour
when you had to hurry up

and go to office

full of work load or
full of thoughts in your head,

was now turned into…

was now turned into morning walks,
or playful time with your pet,

or just lazy cuddles in the morning
with your pets

since you didn’t have to
rush to office so soon.

Bored meetings were still there,

but with the head of your pet in your lap,
they didn’t seem so stressful anymore.

And coffee breaks turned into
feeding time for your pet

or more playtime for your pet.

Some of you might have
indulged into yoga sessions with your cat

or,

yes, those who are cat owners would know
that it is extremely difficult

not to give attention to
the cat when she’s around,

and she’ll take the liberty of walking
across your laptop

without giving any importance
to the work that you’re doing.

But what it did was,

it helped you break away from the screen
that you constantly stare at.

For pets, they don’t have the concept of
work from home,

or they don’t understand why
you keep staring at a screen for so long.

They need your attention,
they crave for your attention,

and they constantly make sure that
they get your attention.

But this has an advantage.

When you’re working from home
and you have pets around you,

your neck wasn’t that stiff anymore,

your eyes did’t hurt so bad
as it used to back in office.

This was because you constantly
kept looking at your pet.

They kept, the pet kept
wanting your attention.

You got up more often,
you moved more often,

you felt their touch more often.

So all the factors that built up
in a stiff body and stressed mind

were, in fact, taken care
by the pets that were at home.

And this is true for any pet
like it may be a cat or a dog,

or even a bird or even fish.

A lot of people who have fish
at home would, you know,

constantly go back and feed
or watch and observe the tank,

and a lot of stress just, you know,
melts away when you do that.

So those who had pets during pandemic
have experienced that

it was much more beneficial to have pets
than to work without pets around.

This is the power of unconditional love.

Work wasn’t stressful anymore.

In fact, you probably learned to be
more mindful with your pet around.

Just as nature can accomplish everything
without rushing into anything,

you also somehow managed
to get everything accomplished

without being in a rush to do things.

Now, how exactly does this work,
is it that simple?

Just get a pet and your stress goes away?

Yeah …That is definitely more to it.

And as a therapist, what I do is I,

I combine the therapeutic benefit of
having a pet into my therapeutic practice.

And this is something that
all of us who have pets at home can do.

For example, if I am to…

OK,
this is Glancy.

She’s my cat and she has been
wonderful to us throughout the pandemic

with my kids,
who had to work,

who had to do their school from home.

And it was not easy for kids as well,
like for us humans, adults itself,

it has been a very difficult
time to adjust to everything.

But wonder how children
must have taken it.

But Glancy has been there with them
throughout.

Whenever they felt frustrated, as

“Why can’t we go out, mama?”

“Why can’t we meet our friends?”

“I’m missing school”, or,

“what else to do if you are
seeing no gadgets or no TV time”.

And then, it was Glancy.

We came up with so many new games,
so many new fun activities,

and Glancy was always a part of it.

Whenever they felt, ugh,

whenever they felt overwhelmed,

Glancy used to literally cuddle with them.

Yeah, Glancy?

Yeah. So when you have pet,
you can do many things,

even if it is not a therapeutic pet,

you can incorporate your pet
in many activities at home

to maximize the therapeutic benefits
that they give you.

Now, what are these therapeutic benefits?
If your ask,

simple things that you might know that,
yes, they lower down your stress,

they to lower down the anxiety,

but how does that happen?

When you stroke a dog,

it helps you in generating oxytocin,

which gives you the happy feeling
or the relaxed feeling,

which in trun, you know,
lowers down your stress.

This is just one thing.

There are many other benefits like,
you know,

the playtime with dogs will actually
help you in movement

When you are just sitting at home
and working,

or, you know, just doing one thing,

You tend to restrict
your physical movements.

But when you have a pet, yes,

the pet makes you move more physically
and that’s always what you get advantage.

And the most important thing that

this pandemic has made us realize of
what we’ve been, you know,

overlooking or underestimating,

is the sense of touch.

Now, touch is such a, you know,
it’s very common,

but then, when you are deprived of it,
is when you realize how important it is.

So during the pandemic,

when you couldn’t touch people,
when you couldn’t hug people,

when you couldn’t get
that pat on your back,

you know,
you felt a sense of deprivation of touch.

And that’s where a lot of families
who had pets could get that filled in.

When it was difficult to reach out to
someone you love

or when you craved for that,

you know, contact, comfort,
for that physical comfort,

your pets were always there for you.

And this benefited more for children,

especially single children
during the pandemic

or senior citizens or those with
special need, who had to be locked,

locked down in in a confined space.

Now, this also gave rise to a new trend
called the pandemic puppy phenomena.

Everyone had somehow realized, or rather
most of them had somehow realized that,

“yes, we need a pet in the house!”

It might have been a cat or a dog
or whatever they chose as their pet,

but people were feeling
the need for companionship

and it gave rise to people adopting
puppies and kittens and, you know,

other smaller animals straight away.

And, you know, for most people
who are working

in the adoption, ugh,
and rehabilitation sector

would have been happy about this.

But it also gave rise to
a serious concern of

whether these families who have now
decided to take a pet

because it was a need and because they
were at home, all of them were at home,

would they still continue having the pet
after the pandemic was over,

and after all of them had to
go back to their work?

Because having a pet is a huge commitment,

and you cannot just decide to
have a pet at your convenience.

So though it is, it is very joyous that

a lot of people are now
deciding to have a pet,

or are realizing that it is definitely
going to be beneficial for them,

they also have to be mindful that
having a pet is a responsibility for life.

And, since it’s a mutually
benefiting relationship,

it shouldn’t be that only we are getting
the benefit of it, and not them.

So, the presence of pet that provides us
that much needed contact, comfort,

the much needed physical presence,
you know,

being in an empty house or
walking into an empty house

as opposed to coming home to
a wagging tail

or coming home to a cat, you know,
going across your legs,

that makes a lot of difference.

Unconditional love is

……is the hallmark
of what animals can offer to us.

But that is not all, you know,

they help us…

they they’re basically very
keen observations,

like if I am at home working or
my husband is at home working,

our cats are constantly around us
and they are watching us,

they’re observing us.

When they feel that
we are getting probably overworked,

or we are getting stressed out,
then they will definitely walk towards us，

they would, you know, draw attention,

probably want to play or
bring something to us to play.

And without noticing,

our mind gets diverted
from the thought track that we…

that…that has occupied our minds
to the cat.

And, you know, for those who have been
struggling to deal with overthinking

or, you know, a lot of stressful thoughts,

I’m sure you’ve all been through it,

and it’s easier said than done that
stop overthinking or don’t overthink

or cut off from your thoughts.

It’s not that easy,

but pets make it so easy.

You know, you don’t know how
to stop your thoughts,

but when a pet comes in front of you,

your mind is automatically diverted
towards the pet and the thought is lost.

So it helps you deal with
different emotions in a much better way.

And yes, pets can recognize our emotions,

and when we interact with them more,
they learn how to respond to it.

So if you’re feeling anxious
and your cat will come,

come close to you
and she’ll start purring.

So that’s an indication that
she has noticed that you are stressed out.

And that also means that you have to give
more attention to her

and just focus on her purring

and just be mindful of that connection
that you have with her,

and yes, your stress will go away.

So next time you feel stressed out,
don’t forget to hug your cat or your dog.

Thank you so much.